Our Negro veterans

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LIC AFFAIRS PAMPHLET No. 128

OUR
NEGRO VETERANS

jpHARLES G. BOLTS AND LOUIS HARRIS

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OUR NEGRO
VETERANS

By CHARLES G. BOLTE
and LOUIS HARRIS

OUT of every major war in our nation's history has come prog-
ress for the American Negro. Yet each war has been followed
by a reaction which wiped out many of the gains. In each case
there has been a clash between those who have raised their
standards of living, who have opened new channels of oppor-
tunity, and those who want to turn back the clock to prewar
conditions.

The American Revolution saw the rise of a brisk, mercantile
society and a Jeffersonian outlook in the North. The combination
removed all vestiges of slavery from the North. But not long
after, the booming cotton market gave rise to the plantation sys-
tem which firmly implanted slavery in the South for the greater
part of another century.

The material in this pamphlet is based on a series of surveys made
by the Bureau of the Census, the National Urban League, the
Southern Regional Council, and the American Veterans Com-
mittee.

Copyright, 1947, by the Public Affairs Committee, Incorporated
—A nonprofit, educational organization—

212704

2 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

The Civil War gave the Negro formal emancipation, the right
to bear arms for his country, and partial political franchise. But
the postwar reaction severely curtailed the new-found political
freedom and reduced Negroes to economic serfdom.

The First World War opened Northern industry to Negro
workers for the first time. More than a million Negroes migrated
to industrial centers. Although the standard of living in the urban
North was depressed by all-Negro slum districts, life was better
than it had been under peonage and tenancy in the South. The
postwar protest inevitably came, subsequent unemployment pro-
duced race tensions and serious riots, and Negroes were segregated
in the North more strictly than before.

Today, Negro veterans of World War II find themselves in
a similar crisis. No longer are Negro troops and war workers
of strategic military importance. The need for using every human
and material resource to win the war has passed. The bargaining
strength of the Negro population as a whole has been reduced.
Greater difficulty is encountered in combating such race terror
groups as the Columbians and the Ku Klux Klan.

Veteran's Problems Intensified for Negroes

Each difficulty confronting veterans as a whole is inten-
sified for Negro veterans. Veterans generally want jobs that pay
more; Negro veterans desperately need jobs of any kind. Veterans
need housing; the Negro is always in dire need of housing. One
out of three white veterans cannot find adequate educational
and training facilities; four out of five Negro veterans are faced
with most unsatisfactory educational and training opportunities.
The Negro veteran meets greater obstacles than the non-Negro
veteran at every turn for one reason : his skin is darker.

What happens to the Negro veteran today and in the next
five years is important to the nation. America is at the crossroads
in its pattern of race relations. The Negro veteran has seen more
of the world than the rest of his people; he is the first to seek
a new voice at the polls in hitherto white primaries; he is firmer
in demanding better jobs than have been available to Negroes
in the past; his potential contribution to the nation is greater
in terms of leadership. He is also more likely to suffer violence

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 3

for carrying the torch of the Negro postwar protest against dis-
crimination in America.

The Negro veteran is old enough to have killed men in battle
and young enough to look forward to a whole lifetime of adult-

VETERANS' EDUCATIONAL AND

TRAINING FACILITIES

INADEQUATE FOR

ONE

OUT OF

THREE

WHITE
VETERANS

INADEQUATE FOR

FOUR "

OUT OF

FIVE

NEGRO VETERANS

(Each figure represents approximately 200,000 veterans.)

HARRY A. HERZOG, FOR THE PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, INC

hood. He wants very simple things in life : a good job, educational
and vocational guidance, better housing, and a little self-respect.
He knows that returning veterans were supposed to find these
things. He knows they exist in this land of ours. But he does not
find them. He is different from other veterans only because
whatever he is seeking in life is harder for him to attain, what-
ever obstacles lie in his path are more difficult to overcome.

4 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

WHERE OUR NEGRO VETERANS LIVE

ONE out of every thirteen veterans of World War II is a Negro.
Of the 1,154,486 Negro veterans 1,029,946, or 89 per cent,
have their homes either in the thirteen Southern states or the bisr
urban centers of the North. Almost two-thirds of them are in the
South, with twice as many in the cities and small towns as are
on the farms. Of the 26 per cent in the North, almost all are
crowded in the confines of the overpopulated Negro districts.
A recent study pointed out that if all the population of the coun-
try were as concentrated as the Negro population is in Harlem,
the entire 140,000,000 men, women, and children in America
could live in New York City.

Northward Migration

Negro veterans have been moving from the South to the North
and West since V-J Day. Approximately one out of every ten
Negro veterans, or some 75,000, has left the South. The main
reasons for this migration have been:

1. The lack of jobs that pay over $20 weekly.

2. The lack of a sense of "belonging" to Southern communi-

ties.

3. The lack of schools and training facilities

4. The lack of recreational facilities.

5. The lack of housing.

6. The promise of greater opportunity in the North and West.

7. The promise of new industrial development in the West.

8. The promise of greater "equality" in the North.

9. The desire to see the country.

1 o. The desire for a change of any kind.

Restless, ambitious, with a newly acquired sense of mobility,
young Negro veterans have migrated chiefly to the West. Almost
inevitably, however, they have gravitated to cities where they
trade the slow-moving undercurrent of Southern frustration for
the hemmed-in restriction of the Negro ghetto. Trusting only
members of their own race, Negro veterans seek other Negroes

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 5

when they migrate. Yet, for all of the overcrowded, slum-filled
conditions they find in Northern cities, Negro veterans probably
have a greater chance there of attaining security and opportunity
than they did in their previous homes.

Most of the Negro veterans will undoubtedly remain in the
South. They will stay there because in most cases they were born

LOCATION OF NEGRO VETERANS

(Each dot represents approximately 1 0,000 negro veterans.)

11%
SCATTERED

THROUGHOUT
COUNTRY

63%

IN 13

SOUTHERN
STATES

there and have family attachments and responsibilities there.
Most of them are unable to afford moving to another part of
the country. In many cases, they live in such ignorance and
poverty that they never even consider the possibility of moving.
A considerable number of Negroes believe that the colored people
should remain in the South and "see it through." More progres-
sive Negroes hold, however, that their only hope as a race lies
in a widespread scattering to all parts of the country where
assimilation and acceptance will come more readily. The latter
group may be right in evaluating the best interests of their people.
But the bulk of the Negro veterans face an uncertain future
south of the Mason-Dixon line.

6 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

Where Negro Veterans Are Concentrated

Apart from Washington, D. C, where they constitute 25 per
cent of the veteran population, Negro veterans are most heavily
concentrated in the following states, where the percentage of
veterans who are Negro is as shown: Louisiana, 27.6 per cent;
Alabama, 24 per cent; Florida, 22.7 per cent; Georgia, 21.4 per
cent; Mississippi, 38.5 per cent; and South Carolina, 28.1 per
cent. These figures are to be contrasted with the over-all per-
centage of only 7.7 per cent of Negro personnel in the armed
forces. It is in these areas that the greatest number of lynchings
of Negro veterans have taken place; it is here that the most
Negro veterans are unemployed; that the poorest educational
facilities exist; and segregation is most drastically enforced. Here
also exists the greatest amount of poverty. There are large num-
bers of Negroes in North Carolina, New York, and Texas, but
in these latter states the ratio of whites to Negroes is higher and
the level of living is slightly less depressed.

The Challenge

The problems, then, which the Negro veterans must face—
and which all America must solve if we are to meet our obliga-
tion of citizenship to over a million men and women who served
in World War II— are the problems which the South and the
urban centers of the North raise. Each is peculiar unto itself,
steeped in the traditions and folkways of the region. The pace
in each is different. The degree of progress is different. But the
central issue is the same in all areas: How can economic and
educational discrimination be ended in our lifetime?

WARTIME GAINS

LIKE all of the men who fought in the recent war, Negro
veterans came back home with a wide range of experience. Over
two-thirds of those in the Army had been overseas and had seen
the way people of other lands live. Many had been to France
and England where they had been accepted by civil populations

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 7

without discrimination. Many were embittered over the menial
tasks to which they had been assigned. They resented being kept
from combat after having sailed to the battlefronts. In the Army
over 70 per cent of all overseas Negro troops were assigned to
unskilled duties behind the lines; in the Navy 90 per cent were
assigned to such tasks as stewards, cooks, mess boys, and seamen.
Yet they had moved out of their homes and seen new faces
and new habits for the first time. They had learned many new
skills which could be applied to civilian life. Although Negro
veterans found conditions at home no worse than when they
went away to war, they were far more restless and dissatisfied
when they returned to civilian life.

Among Negro Civilians

In the North, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest,
there was greater prosperity among Negroes than ever before.
More skilled jobs were being held down by Negroes; wage rates
were higher; and public indignation against discrimination had
grown. The Negro had shown himself to be able and skilled as
a worker, and nothing has done more to help his status than
this demonstration of competence. Scarcely a public official in
the North could afford openly to look down upon the Negro
people. There was tension in the great urban centers where
Negro districts were spilling into formerly all-white districts,
where overcrowded living conditions gave outlet to latent preju-
dices. But there had been a definite and important improvement
in race relations.

The Fight for Citizenship

In the South, the traditional caste system was feeling the effect
of Northern protest. A larger number of Southern whites and
Negroes— many of them veterans— were becoming conscious of
the injustice of the traditional pattern of segregation, though the
group was still a small minority. The South as a whole was be-
coming conscious of the race problem instead of merely accepting
the double standard. A wave of violence swept the least enlight-
ened areas.

8 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

During the height of the primaries in 1946, at which Negro
veterans took the lead in bringing out a record Negro vote, six
Negro veterans were lynched. All six slayings occurred between
July 20 and August 8, 1946. In addition, a number of colored
veterans disappeared around registration time in the fifteen
Southern states. Many left the region because of threats; the
bodies of others were found floating in the Mississippi River or
mutilated in the woods.

The South was reacting to the postwar protest, as it had after
the first World War: resisting the general, nation-wide rise in
living conditions among Negroes, attempting desperately to hold
color lines fast. But many white veterans as well as their Negro
comrades-in-arms had broadened their outlook. With distances
shortened, with widespread use of aircraft and modern com-
munications, the more liberal and less discriminatory North was
moving physically closer to and having greater influence on the
South.

WHAT THE NEGRO VETERAN WANTS

THE way in which the white South and the North allow the
Negro veteran to exercise his rights as a citizen will shape the
whole future of the Negro in America for this generation. The
needs of Negro veterans are essentially the needs of all Negroes,
but the veterans have a greater chance of fulfilling them. A
special survey of some sixty-seven communities, mainly in the
South, reflects the special problems of the Negro veteran and
the difficulties he faces in solving them. The accompanying chart
points up, for example, the difference between opportunities for
white and Negro veterans.

Housing

Although housing for Negro veterans has had a relatively low
priority, Negro veterans need houses more than any group in
the population. But the shortage of homes has been no more
acute than the shortage in jobs— that is, real jobs paying more
than $20 a week. And, until they can find jobs with decent
wages, Negroes simply cannot afford to buy homes or pay higher
rentals.

OUR NEGRO VETERANS

MAJOR PROBLEMS OF VETERANS

ALL VETERANS

S"

NEED M

HOUSING 28% d U

<$

NEED

GOOD JOBS 26%!

u n x I f

T7^Q.V '

□

t

D

! NEED GUIDANCE 22% J

NEED
EDUCATIONAL

FACILITIES 18%I

NEED I

ADJUSTMENT TO COMMUNITY 7%1

NEED RECREATIONAL FACILITIES

NEGRO VETERANS

1 I 10%

*♦♦♦*♦'
Mr

Mi

Ml

f 5%

31%

20%

118%

HARRY A. HERZOG, FOR THE PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, INC.

Jobs

It is distressing to find jobs the number one problem of Negro
veterans at a period when employment in the nation is soaring
to new heights. The reason is twofold: first, Negro veterans
want jobs that are more than menial ; second, most employers and
many unions refuse to lift racial barriers to employment. Negro
veterans want to develop skills, to get better jobs. The Negro
veteran has not only been unable to find better jobs, but he has
had no place to go for advice on where to seek them.

10 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

Education and Training

Where Negro veterans have sought to enter college under the
GI Bill, or have attempted to find an on-the-job or on-the-farm
training program, they have found that the educational and
training facilities were overcrowded, understaffed, or simply
nonexistent. The overcrowding encountered by the 1,800,000
veterans who have applied for schools has been particularly
serious for Negro veterans. Most white colleges have strict quotas
for Negroes, and Negro colleges are small and few in number.

For practical purposes, Negro veterans have been treated as
second-class citizens, regardless of their rights under the law.

GOOD JOBS—NO. I NEED

DESPITE the handicaps listed above, the Negro veterans have
many advantages never before enjoyed by a large Negro group.
They have been aided tremendously by the GI Bill of Rights,
particularly the provision of fifty-two weeks of unemployment
compensation at $20 weekly. Without this readjustment allow-
ance, Negro veterans would probably have been forced to return
to their old jobs as menial workers at wages of ten to fifteen
dollars weekly. Actually only 15 per cent of all Negro veterans re-
turned to the jobs they had prior to the war. Those on farms
did not want to go back to a sharecropper's existence. Those in
small towns working in unskilled jobs in mills or in low-paying
cigarette factories wanted a future with greater promise. The
"52-20 club," as the veterans call the unemployment compen-
sation, has given Negro veterans an opportunity to look around
before taking a job.

Many Negro soldiers and sailors visited war-boom cities while
in the armed forces. They talked with many of the Negro workers
who had been up-graded and had learned skills in war produc-
tion. Negro war workers jumped from a total of .6 per cent to
6 per cent in skilled categories in the two years from 1942 to
1944. In the industrialized North, Negro veterans knew that
precedents had been broken, that some of the race barriers to
employment had been broken down. They were determined to

OUR NEGRO VETERANS

11

obtain good jobs or the training that would eventually provide
them with better employment. The "52-20 club" permitted them
to wait it out.

For the first year after V-J Day, an average of approximately
15 per cent of all Negro veterans were receiving unemployment
compensation. But this does not take into account the nearly
35 per cent who shifted their jobs every few months.

Jobs Aplenty — At Low Pay

In forty-one out of sixty-seven towns and cities surveyed, the
desire for better jobs ranked first among all needs. In most places
Negro veterans have found only menial old-line Negro jobs
offered. In Arkansas, for example, 95 per cent of the placements
made by the USES for Negroes were for service and unskilled
jobs. A survey in Georgia concludes, "Jobs are aplenty but at
low pay and in unattractive work. In town after town, it is
being found that Negro veterans are being offered jobs at twelve,
fifteen, eighteen, or twenty-odd dollars a week. A large propor-
tion of the men can show industrial or army experience at work
better than common labor, and they are therefore entitled to
draw the readjustment allowances. This is 'rocking chair' money."
Even in the West, where many Negro veterans have gone in
the hope of better wages, figures for October 1946 showed 12
per cent of Negro veterans were receiving unemployment com-

12

OUR NEGRO YETERANS

pensation. For the first half of 1 946, unemployment ran 1 1 per
cent higher among former Negro service men than it did among
white veterans.

On the whole, Negro veterans have been accepted in new
small businesses rather than large ones. In industries which have
large plant units, race lines are usually settled; a firm policy of

IN THE BUILDING TRADES

OUT OF EVERY EIGHT NEGROES EMPLOYED

SEVEN

ARE EMPLOYED

AT UNSKILLED LABOR

HARRY A. HERZOG, FOR THE PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, INC.

nonemployment is normal. But many small shops in new indus-
tries, particularly in the service and repair fields, have success-
fully employed Negro veterans.

Discrimination in the Building Trades

An example of an industry which badly needs skilled workers
but bars Negro veterans is the building trades. With a construc-
tion boom of unprecedented proportions, the industry needs some
1,500,000 workers. There are thousands of trained Negro con-
struction workers who were electricians, plumbers, sheet metal
workers, carpenters, and other mechanics in the Army and Navy.
Yet, except for work as common laborers and hod-carriers, Negro
veterans are virtually banned from the industry. Only four cities
out of twenty-one surveyed by J. A. Thomas of the National
Urban League had an adequate training program for veterans
in the building trades.

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 13

Take, for example, Negro carpenters. Although more than
24,000 of them were trained in the Army, not more than 5 per
cent of these have been employed as carpenters since returning
to civilian life. The discriminatory practices of the AFL craft
unions is chiefly responsible for the inability of Negro veterans
to find skilled jobs in the building trades. Chief offenders are the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the United
Association of Journeymen, Plumbers, and Steamfitters which
virtually shut out all Negroes from membership. These unions
serve as hiring agents in their trades. Continuation of their policy
of discrimination automatically cuts off all Negro veterans from
these jobs. If the construction industry were to expand its labor
force to its full needs, it alone could furnish employment for
almost all Negro veterans. The outlook, however, is a dismal
one. The building industry will continue to hang out a shingle
which says "No Negroes wanted here."

Apprentice Training

In view of the lack of skilled and semiskilled labor in the
South, Negro veterans are seeking training in trades. They are
particularly anxious to enroll in an apprenticeship or on-the-job
training program. Part of this demand for job training comes
from the failure to find decent full-time employment. Part is a
positive desire for self-improvement and a better life. Successful
apprentice-training programs have been set up for carpenters,
plasterers, and brickmasons. In each case, the program has been
worked out because strong Negro locals of unions have pushed
the training. Three Southern cities— Memphis, New Orleans, and
Augusta— have developed a significant apprentice program in
these three trades. In the North, Boston, Chicago, New York,
and Philadelphia have begun apprentice programs. This appren-
tice training can be considered a success only in comparison with
the dearth of opportunity for the training of Negroes that previ-
ously existed. Even in the best programs, white veterans have
outnumbered Negro veterans about fifty to one. In electrical,
sheet metal, plumbing, machinist, and other crafts, no Negro
veterans are receiving apprentice training. As long as the federal
and state governments' apprentice-training divisions refuse to

14 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

give special consideration to locating Negro veterans in training
programs, and as long as unions and employers pursue a policy
of shutting out all Negroes, apprentice training will not be a
real hope for thousands.

On-the-Job Training

Potentially the most valuable provision of the GI Bill for
Negro veterans is on-the-job training. This training is not limited
to the crafts as is the apprentice training, and the government
pays the veteran a subsistence allowance while he is learning a
job. The record, however, is not impressive. Out of a total of
102,200 receiving on-the-job training in twelve Southern states,
only 7,700 were Negroes. Only one out of twelve veterans re-
ceiving this training is a Negro, although one veteran out of
three in the area is colored. A major obstacle to the develop-
ment of job-training programs for Negroes has been the attitude
of state departments of education, who have to approve all
programs. Many of these departments have followed tradition
in conceiving of all training programs and schooling as being
segregated, and have assumed that the on-the-job training-
program is "for whites only." The programs that have been most
successful for Negroes have been in small repair and maintenance
shops employing small numbers of men, where each individual
has a better chance of being judged as an individual according
to his ability and capacity to learn rather than by the color of
his skin.

On-the-Farm Training

On-the-farm training has been even less successful. It has
usually been limited to owners and tenants, while most Negro
veterans come from families who are either sharecroppers or
laborers. The program is highly decentralized and the white
landholding interests who direct the training in many areas do
not seem to be inclined to train Negroes to operate farms which
they might some day own. Out of 28,000 veterans who have
received on-the-farm training in the South, only 3,500, or ap-
proximately 1 1 per cent, are Negro veterans. Thus, only 1 per

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 15

cent of the 350,000 Negro veterans who were drafted from
farms have received training for this vocation at government
expense.

Vocational and Trade Schools

Vocational and trade schools also present a disappointing pic-
ture. A survey of fifty key cities, by the Urban League revealed
that only eleven cities had any formal vocational or technical
training facilities. Only Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington,
D. C, among those cities with segregated school systems, had
satisfactory schools which Negro veterans could attend. In cities
where color lines were not drawn, Negro veterans were able to
attend only the industrial arts departments of high schools. These
give only a general training which is not applicable to a specific
job. Negro veterans attending trade schools have been particu-
larly anxious to get training in radio and electrical work, machine
shop and mechanics, business training, carpentry and woodwork,
and commercial photography. These trades have been almost
entirely closed to Negroes.

Substandard Courses

Because of the limited training opportunities, a number of
individuals and groups have set up special vocational training
courses for Negro veterans. Although these courses have, in every
case, been approved by the Department of Education in the
respective states, it is doubtful if many of them meet minimum
standards for this type of training. In the absence of other oppor-
tunities, the Negro veteran may easily be exploited.

In view of these conditions, it can be readily understood why
so many Negro veterans have remained in the "52-20 clubs."
Shut out of industry after industry, offered only old-line Negro
jobs at low pay, unable to obtain a workable job-training
program, it is surprising that the Negro veterans have not given
up the struggle for advancement. But most of them are patiently
seeking to take advantage of each new job opening, each new
opportunity to become better citizens. The responsibility lies with
white America to see that the gates of economic opportunity are
opened to Negroes.

16 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

HOMES FOR NEGRO VETERANS

ALL veterans agree there is no place like home— if you have one.
The housing situation remains acute for 4,000,000 veterans. It
is worse for Negro veterans. Not more than 100,000 Negro
veterans can afford to pay for the homes built under the Veterans
Emergency Housing Program. In the South, for every four units
being constructed for white veterans, only one is being built for
Negro veterans although the ratio of white to Negro veterans
is two to one.

The Negro veteran in the South is eager both to buy and to
rent new homes. This is probably a reflection of his discontent
with life in his prewar home as compared with life in Army
barracks. It is part of his general feeling of unrest and the desire
for a change for the better which affects all Negro veterans.
The Negro veteran cannot afford, on the average, however, more
than $30 or $35 a month rent, nor a purchase price, on the
average, over $4,000. Since it is impossible to build for less than
$6,500 and to rent new houses at less than $60 per month, the
Negro veteran must look to public, low-cost housing for housing
within his means. This will continue to be the case until the
general income level of Negro veterans is raised to the level of
other veterans.

Negro veterans by and large have not been able to buy houses
at the high prices which have prevailed since V-J Day. They
need rental housing— at low rents. That the need of Negroes
for housing is more acute than that of the general public is borne
out in the 1940 general housing census. This showed that while
the house of one white family out of four was substandard, one
Negro family out of three had substandard housing.

Government-sponsored low-cost housing projects, which offer
rentals within the present price range of Negro veterans, un-
doubtedly offer the greatest hope. But if wartime governmental
policy is any indication, Negro veterans may not obtain their
share of such housing. In the building of defense housing, only
2 per cent of the units were allocated to Negro families. Of the
200,000 public units which Congress authorized to be built in
1 946-1 947, Negro veterans will do well to get 10,000 or 15,000.

OUR NEGRO VETERANS

17

Discrimination in Housing Costs

Rents have jumped more for Negro dwellings since 1936
than for white. Today, the Negro veteran and his family receive
considerably less for their housing dollars than the white veteran
or any group in the white population. This can be readily seen
in the overpopulated Negro ghettos of Northern cities and the

VETERANS' HOUSING IN THE SOUTH

dJ LnJ LoJ Ln

FOR EVERY FOUR UNITS BEING
CONSTRUCTED FOR WHITE VETERANS,

ALTHOUGH THE RATIO OF WHITE TO NEGRO VETERANS IS TWO TO ONE

HARRY A. HERZOG. FOR THE PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, INC

increased population in the Negro districts of Southern com-
munities.

Steep increases in rents are not the only disadvantage Negro
veterans have to face in meeting their housing needs. In every
kind of home financing with the exception of government-spon-
sored HOLG and FHA mortgages, Negroes have had to pay
higher interest rates. And, in many cases, commercial banking
institutions have used high interest rates as a means of enforcing
restrictive covenants for keeping Negroes out of predominantly
white areas.

As Dr. Frank Home, director of the Race Relations Division
of the National Housing Agency, has pointed out: "The privilege
of being a Negro comes at a high premium in the current real-
estate and financial market."

18 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

Fewer New Houses

Current plans for veterans' housing in eight Southern states
allot only 21 per cent of the new homes to Negroes although
one-third of the veteran population is Negro. Tennessee is the
only state where the proportion of houses for Negro veterans
exceeds the proportion of Negroes among the veterans. Mem-
phis, Tennessee, with 3,500 out of 8,500 homes planned for
Negro veterans; Meridian, Mississippi, with 800 out of 2,000
units available to Negroes; and Jackson, Mississippi, with 1,000
out of 3,000 for Negro veterans have the best record among the
Southern cities.

The immediate future for Negro veterans' housing lies in low-
cost housing projects and in the development of inexpensive
prefabricated homes. But in the long run the fundamental solu-
tion lies in raising the wage scale so that Negro veterans, and all
Negroes, can afford to pay the costs of decent housing.

EDUCATION

THE educational benefits under the GI Bill, along with on-the-
job training, are among the most substantial benefits provided
for veterans of World War II. But once again, Negro veterans
have been prevented, through discrimination, segregation, and
second-class facilities, from obtaining the advantages which are
theirs under the law. Out of 100,000 Negro veterans who are
eligible to attend college under the GI bill, only 20,000 have
been able to obtain admittance. Another 15,000 applied but were
unable to find a college or university which had room for them.
It is estimated that if there were space, another 50,000 would
have applied for higher education. Upwards of 70 per cent of
the Negro veterans who have succeeded in enrolling in colleges
are attending all-Negro institutions.

Those who are attending college are specializing for the most
part in education, social work, and social services. It is in these
fields that Negro college graduates traditionally have been able
to find employment. In the past, few Negroes have taken up
engineering, chemistry, physics, law, and medicine. Today, how-

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 19

ever, there are signs of greater diversity among the interests of
veterans in Negro colleges— one more indication that Negroes are
beginning to demand the right to full citizenship in every walk
of life.

Some of the Obstacles

Chief sources of difficulty for Negro veterans who want a
college education are: the lack of physical plant, difficulties in
obtaining surplus materials, strict quotas adhered to by most
Northern universities, and the inadequacy of governmental allot-
ments. As with all universities, housing is the number one shortage
of Negro colleges. The National Housing Agency helped by pro-
viding some 6,000 dwelling units to Negro colleges in the fall
and winter of 1946-47. Shortages of equipment have prevented
one-third of all Negro colleges from admitting more veterans.
The inability of the colleges to outbid noneducational buyers for
laboratory equipment in War Assets Administration sales has
seriously curtailed the courses in the physical sciences available
to Negro veterans. Classroom space has been another limiting
factor. A number of colleges report a shortage of recreational
equipment.

A survey of twenty-one of the leading Negro colleges, with
a total veteran enrolment of 11,043, showed that 55 per cent
of all veteran applicants had to be turned away because of a
lack of space. Among veterans as a whole, approximately 28 per
cent were turned away for lack of space. The loss of potential
leadership as a result of these rejections is great. It is unlikely
that the opportunities which the GI Bill presents young Negroes
for higher education will be duplicated for many years to come.
Fortunately, veterans have seven years in which to take advan-
tage of these benefits. But the casualty rate will be high.

Gains

Despite the barriers whicE prevent the majority of eligible
Negro veterans from receiving a college education, more Negro
youth are attending universities than ever before— 20,000 of them
are ex-GI's. These men and women, the majority of whom are

20 OUR NEGRO YETERANS

now veterans, will provide leadership for Negroes in the years
ahead. If their training is sufficiently diversified, they can easily
become the first generation of Negroes in American history who
have furnished leadership in every field of our nation's life.
Much depends, however, upon the willingness of the white ma-
jority to allow these veterans to use their capacities fully. It is
not enough to train Negro doctors, lawyers, engineers, physicists,
and social scientists. They must be offered the same opportunities
as are offered all others in their professions.

DISCRIMINATION IN GOVERNMENT
OPPORTUNITIES

FEDERAL laws give blanket benefits to veterans. All laws
passed by Congress to assist veterans are meant to apply to all
veterans. No federal legislation has ever exempted certain veterans
from benefits because of the color of their skin, the religion to
which they hold, or their ancestral backgrounds.

"For White Veterans Only"

But the administration of these laws is quite another story.
Consistently, as though the legislation were earmarked "For
White Veterans Only," federal agencies, particularly in the
South, have discriminated against Negroes. The chief govern-
ment agencies which serve veterans are the Veterans Administra-
tion, the Veterans Employment Service, and the Apprentice-
Training Divisions of the Department of Labor, the National
Housing Agency, and the Reemployment and Retraining Ad-
ministration. The United States Employment Service was re-
turned to the states on November 15,1 946, after wartime federal
control.

Discrimination by federal agencies can be measured only in
terms of failure to render adequate service to individual veterans.
But this is difficult to measure. Federal agencies keep few sta-
tistical records of service according to race. In the South, there
are virtually no records of how Negro veterans have fared in
their relations with their government's representatives. When

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 21

asked why no accounting is made, the agencies correctly point
out that under the law no distinction is made between races.
But every survey that has been made points up the lack of voca-
tional and educational guidance facilities for Negro veterans,
especially in the South. And precisely because discrimination
exists, governmental agencies must statistically examine their
services to all minorities in order that abuses may be avoided.
Typical of answers given by governmental administrators when
pinned down on this question of discrimination was that of a
top official in the Apprentice-Training Service who said, "It is
not our policy to approve or register programs which would
exclude persons because of race or religion— but we cannot inter-
fere with the rights of employers and unions to hire whom they
wish."

White Personnel a Factor

One reason for the almost automatic discrimination produced
by the federal agencies in the South may be found in the em-
ployment of almost exclusively white personnel. In Atlanta,
Georgia, for example, only seven out of 1,700 employees of the
Veterans Administration are Negroes; in Louisiana, out of 700
employees, only three are Negroes; in Tennessee, six out of 900
are Negroes. Even in New York, the only division of the VA
which has adequate Negro representation is the Vocational and
Rehabilitation Section. An unofficial check showed no Negro
employees on the Merit Rating Boards or in the Legal and
Adjudication Divisions. In fact, only one city in the country was
found to have Negro representation on the Merit Rating Boards,
despite the many Negroes who must be served there.

In the Veterans Administration

In the South, virtually the only Veterans Administration offices
which are properly manned to handle Negro veterans are the
branch offices at Negro colleges. Of these, there are, on the
average, one or two in each state. Negro veterans cannot be
expected to travel fifty, a hundred, or two hundred miles to go
to a Veterans Administration office.

22

OUR NEGRO VETERANS

Veterans with service-connected disabilities or injuries are
promised treatment in Veterans Administration Hospitals. Yet
twelve out of 1 1 6 VA hospitals do not accept Negro veterans
except in emergency cases. And of the 10,612 Negro veterans
hospitalized in VA facilities, 4,379, or 42 per cent, were being

OUT OF NINE SELECTED NEGRO COLLEGES

treated in segregated wards. The twelve hospitals refusing ad-
mittance are located in Texas, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi,
Alabama, Arkansas, and Nevada. There is an all-Negro hospital
at Tuskegee, Alabama. A report by the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People points out that "In
Army and Navy hospitals, service men are not segregated by
race, but when the VA takes over such a facility from the Army,
it immediately organizes the hospital according to the 'pattern
of the community.' The service men in the hospitals are dis-
charged and become veterans under a blanket order. Colored
veterans are immediately moved to Jim Crow wards if the hos-
pital is located in the South." For wounded Negro service men,
the first taste of civilian life is segregation. And they don't even
have to get out of bed to find it.

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 23

Although top VA officials point to the no-discrimination pledge
of the agency, admitted difficulty is encountered when enforce-
ment of this policy is attempted on the local level.

Discrimination in the USES

Of the most importance to the Negro veteran in terms of job
placement is the United States Employment Service, which is now
controlled by the states. While still under federal control, the
USES did not have a single Negro employee in the states of
Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina,
Arkansas, and Texas, although more than 50 per cent of the
job applicants were Negroes. Negro veterans were not allowed
to use the same employment offices as white veterans in these
states. North Carolina is the only Southern state which employs
a significant number of Negro interviewers and employment
officers. Facilities for job guidance and placement of Negroes in
the government employment offices certainly cannot be expected
to improve with the return of this agency to local autonomy.
Dependence upon Congress for funds might have made some
federal agencies reluctant to undertake a fair race-relations
program, but when these same offices must appeal to state legis-
latures, elected in the South by a predominantly white electorate,
the situation can hardly be expected to improve.

The Veterans Employment Service, which continues under
federal controls, has done little to assist Negro veterans with
skills in obtaining employment. The pattern in this agency
parallels closely that of the USES. Very few Negroes are em-
ployed by the agency, and Negro veterans do not find a welcome
reception at most of its offices below the Mason-Dixon line.

The Race Relations Service of the
National Housing Administration

Shortly after he assumed office as National Housing Expeditor,
Wilson Wyatt announced that his Veterans Emergency Housing
Program was meant for "all veterans— not just for white vet-
erans." Early in the program, which was eventually destroyed
by the removal of price controls, Wyatt appointed Dr. Frank S.

24 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

Home as head of a Race Relations Service. The Race Relations
Service was designed to:

i. Review all policy statements for compliance with fair
standards for minorities.

2. Develop techniques and methods essential to secure homes
for minority veterans.

3. Effect equitable participation of minority groups in all
phases of the housing program.

4. Provide representation of the Service in all parts of the
Agency.

5. Provide information to and reflect accurately all observa-
tions of all organizations or individuals interested in minority
groups.

6. Accumulate and release operational experience in handling
minority group aspects of the program.

7. Assist the personnel division in securing positive application
of the nondiscrimination policy of the Agency.

The section under Dr. Home's direction was a model of what
services a federal agency could offer minority veterans. It was
reflected in a generally better record in housing for Negro veterans
than other agencies could show in their fields. Only by recog-
nizing the tendency toward discrimination can a government
agency ever satisfactorily meet the needs of those less privileged
citizens.

The Race Relations Service of the NHA can take the lion's
share of the credit for the record of 20 per cent allocation of all
veterans' homes in the South to Negroes. Had the Wyatt program
been maintained, Negro veterans would have made a significant
stride toward getting a fair deal in housing. It is to be hoped
that the Race Relations Service will continue in existence and
become a model for other agencies.

Reemployment and Retraining Administration

Coordinating over 3,000 Community Advisory Centers, which
are financed and staffed on the local level, is the Reemployment
and Retraining Administration. The RRA has assisted cities and
towns throughout the nation in establishing centers which have

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 25

advised veterans on all phases of their problems. For Negro
veterans generally, the centers have been of moderate value since
most of their employees are white and little emphasis has been
placed on minority aspects of veterans' problems. In the South,
the Community Advisory Centers were nearly always manned
by whites. But in October 1946, General Graves B. Erskine,
administrator of the agency, appointed a special advisory com-
mittee of four Negro leaders to develop a race-relations program
for the Advisory Centers. At least one of these leaders is op-
timistic over the chances of introducing a race-relations service
successfully in a majority of the 3,000 communities.

Progress Being Made

Slowly, government agencies are beginning to provide services
for Negro veterans. Step by step, from the new precedents set
in such agencies as the NHA and the RRA to the relatively well-
staffed USES offices of North Carolina, the official instruments
of the people of America are moving toward meeting the needs
of Negro ex-service men. The outlook in the South is still dismal,
however, when a Veterans Administration office or a Veterans
Employment Service office is the last place a colored veteran
will go.

Unsolved Problems

The major obstacles blocking full service by federal agencies
to Negro veterans are:

1 . The failure of top officials to recognize the special difficulties
of Negro veterans.

2. The failure to implement broad policy directives which hold
out pious promises of equal service.

3. The unwillingness of local officials of federal agencies to
take the lead in establishing services to all veterans, regardless
of race.

4. The lack of participation by organized minority groups in
federal programs.

5. The reluctance of federal agencies to measure statistically
the present status of Negro veterans, with a view toward defining
their needs.

26 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

6. The lack of minority personnel on the staff of government
field offices, particularly in the South.

7. The lack of enabling legislation such as the Fair Employ-
ment Practices Act which would allow federal agencies to enforce
policies and open up opportunities in local communities.

8. The lack of integration between agencies in racial policies,
so that uniform service is rendered.

On the credit side, it should be pointed out that the federal
agencies are in a better position to deal fairly with the Negro
than most local and state agencies, particularly in the South.
It is an advantage, whether in the North or South, to be divorced
from the local attitudes, direction, and control present in almost
every community. The federal agencies are, in effect, the spokes-
men for all of the people in every part of the nation, whether
in Biloxi, Mississippi, or in Chicago, Illinois. Potentially, these
federal agencies can serve the Negro veteran better than any
other agency.

THE POSTWAR PROTEST

DESPITE all the restrictions and miseries of a disciplined, segre-
gated life in the Army or Navy, hundreds of thousands of Negro
veterans found that only in uniform did they have warm cloth-
ing, good meals, adequate medical services, regular pay, and
a job that was sometimes exciting. Civilian life simply did not
provide these advantages to many Negro veterans. Irrespective
of their protests against segregation in the Army and Navy,
Negroes provided proportionately more volunteers in the first
year of the peace than did any other part of the population.
Although Negroes made up only one-thirteenth of the total num-
ber who served during the war, 25 per cent of all volunteers
from September 1945 to September 1946 were Negro veterans.
Finally, in early September 1946, the War Department set a
quota on Negro enlistments. This quota, supposedly based on
the over-all percentage of Negroes in the population, has re-
mained intact despite vigorous protests from enlightened groups
who saw in the order the curtailing of still another opportunity

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 27

for full participation by Negro veterans. The large percentage
of Negroes who want to reenlist is not so much a commentary
upon the advantages in the armed forces as an indication that
life back home is still insecure and lacking in the promise of
fruitful living.

Veterans1 Organizations

Among the Negro veterans who have not reenlisted, migrated,
or simply submitted to traditional caste patterns, there has been
a widespread desire to join forces with their former comrades-
in-arms. Throughout the South hundreds of local veterans' clubs
have been set up in small rural communities. Negro veterans are
usually in all-Negro groups. Although they are mainly social,
they give the Negro veterans a sense of "belonging" and of hav-
ing common strength to meet the problems of adjustment. For
the most part, however, Negro veterans have found themselves
not wanted as fully participating members by such old-line
veterans' organizations as the American Legion, the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, and the Disabled American Veterans. The only
opportunity to participate in these groups has been in segregated
Negro posts, according to the "pattern of the community."

In response to protests against their discriminatory policies,
the leaders of the Legion, VFW, and DAV say that the Negroes
"want it that way." There is a surprising demand on the
part of many Negro veterans to join these old-line organizations.
Recently in Louisiana, after the Legion state department aban-
doned its policy of not admitting any Negroes, some thirteen
Negro posts were organized within three weeks. In these cases,
the desire to be part of a larger organization undoubtedly counter-
balances the hostility toward segregation. Generally, however,
Negro veterans have waited before joining a national organiza-
tion, weighing the advantages of a small but nonsegregated local
group against those of a large but discriminatory organization.

The alternatives to membership in all-Negro units are as rare
as are the small islands of progress which exist throughout the
country for Negroes as a whole. The largest veterans' organiza-
tion with a complete no-discrimination policy is the American
Veterans Committee. Segregated chapters, regardless of region,

28 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

are not allowed by constitutional provision in the AVC. The
provision is strictly enforced.

The national counterpart to the localized, all-Negro veterans'
groups which have been formed chiefly in the South is the United
Negro and Allied Veterans of America which, although claiming
a biracial structure, is in the main Negro in membership.

If the history of Negro protest organizations has any meaning,
its lesson lies in the necessity for Negroes to join with whites
wherever possible to strike out for greater freedom. It is highly
improbable that Negro veterans will find fulfillment of their
needs for better jobs and social and political advancement in
organizations in which segregation is either forced or self-imposed.

CONCLUSIONS

THERE are two major sets of facts surrounding the life of
Negro veterans in America today : ( i ) Over a million dark-
skinned ex-service men are, by training, discipline, sacrifice, and
determination, prepared for integration into the nation's life as
first-class citizens. (2) The nation has almost universally failed
to grasp the enormous opportunity which is presented through
veterans' benefits for this minority group. Whether or not this
generation of Negroes succeeds in gaining improved social and
economic conditions, the present-day Negro veterans are the
leaders of their people. Full citizenship is demanded by Negro
veterans. It can be safely assumed that the majority will hold
to this demand for the rest of their lives.

Whether the road these veterans travel Is one of peaceful
progress or violent frustration will be determined in the specific
problems which must be met now:

Jobs

1. The "52-20" club is a disappearing cushion which does
not answer the need for a decent paying job.

2. In the position of being the last-hired and first-fired, the
stake of the Negro veteran in maintaining full employment is
high.

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 29

3. Negro veterans particularly will migrate to those areas
where some Negroes already serve as skilled workers.

4. They will continuously press for openings at other than
unskilled jobs until they secure them.

5. When they are turned down on the basis of lack of train-
ing, Negro veterans will press for greater on-the-job training
facilities, apprentice-training opportunities, and better vocational
and trade schools.

6. Restrictive practices by employers and unions in many in-
dustries, chiefly the building trades, will have to be curtailed
before full participation by Negro veterans in the labor market
can be obtained.

Housing

1. Negro veterans will continue to live in substandard dwell-
ings until they are economically able to participate equally as
renters and buyers in the housing market.

2. Restrictive covenants, the legal device to keep Negroes con-
fined to urban ghettos, should be abolished.

3. Discriminatory mortgage rates should be equalized.

4. Greater quantities of low-cost housing and prefabricated
houses must be made available to Negro veterans.

Education

1 . Segregated Negro colleges are neither well enough equipped
nor numerous enough to meet the demands of Negro veterans
for higher education.

2. Quota systems in most colleges severely limit the number
of Negroes attending, and already have forced at least 50 per
cent of eligible Negro veterans to abandon plans for higher
education.

3. The traditional pattern of entering the teaching, social
service, and social work field is giving way to greater diversity

30 OUR NEGRO VETERANS

of study— an indication of the demand for full citizenship in all
fields.

Governmental Opportunities

i. Governmental agencies excuse failure to service Negro
veterans properly by claiming that they would be discriminating
if they dealt specially with minority problems.

2. Federal agencies fail to administer a broad biracial policy
on the local level, particularly in the South.

3. Most agencies either have very few or no Negro personnel
to staff Southern offices, although almost two-thirds of all Negro
veterans live there.

4. There is little uniformity in over-all administrative policy
in dealing with the race-relations aspects of veterans' problems.

5. The National Housing Agency, under Wilson Wyatt, stood
out as a model of what a government bureau could do to estab-
lish an equitable policy for minorities.

OUR NEGRO VETERANS 31

FOR FURTHER READING

Benedict, Ruth, and Weltfish, Gene. The Races of Mankind.
Public Affairs Pamphlet No. 85. 1946 edition.

Bolte, Charles G. "He Fought for Freedom," Survey Graphic.
January, 1947.

Halsey, Margaret. Color Blind. New York, Simon & Schuster.
1946.

Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma. New York, Harpers.
1944.

National Urban League. The Negro Veteran. 1946.

Northrup, Herbert R. Will Negroes Get Jobs Now? Public Affairs
Pamphlet No. no. 1945.

Southern Regional Council. Studies of Negro Veterans in Selected
Southern States. 1946.

Stewart, Maxwell S. The Negro in America. Public Affairs
Pamphlet No. 95. 1946 edition.

Date Due

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Maxwell S. Stewart, Editor of the Pamphlet Series

Mabel C. Mount, Assistant Editor

Violet Edwards, Director of Education and Promotion

Gladys Gunnerson, Business Manager

All rights reserved. No part of this pamphlet may be reproduced without per-
mission, except short passages of no more than 500 words in length which may
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For permission to use longer excerpts, write to the Public Affairs Committee'
Incorporated, 22 East 38th Street, New York 16, N. Y.

First Edition, March, 1947

Printed in the United States of America

3 2 5\ 2 6

21 2704

PUBLIC AFFAIRS PAMPHLE

1. INCOME AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS

5. CREDIT FOR CONSUMERS
23. INDUSTRIAL PRICE POLICIES
25. MACHINES AND TOMORROW'S WORLD
27. WHO CAN AFFORD HEALTH?

33. THIS PROBLEM OF FOOD

34. WHAT MAKES CRIME?

38. THE FIGHT ON CANCER

39. LOAN SHARKS AND THEIR VICTIMS
43. SAFEGUARDING OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES
53. WHAT IT TAKES TO

MAKE GOOD IN COLLEGE

61. INSTALMENT SELLING— PROS AND CONS

62. HOW TO BUY LIFE INSURANCE

65. PROSTITUTION AND THE WAR

66. HOMES TO LIVE IN

67. GOVERNMENT UNDER PRESSURE

69. VITAMINS FOR HEALTH

70. WHAT'S HAPPENING TO

OUR CONSTITUTION?
76. WORKERS AND BOSSES ARE HUMAN

78. THE AIRPLANE AND TOMORROW'S WORLD

79. THE BEVERIDGE PLAN

83. WAR, BABIES, AND THE FUTURE

85. THE RACES OF MANKIND

86. WHEN I GET OUT? WILL I FIND A JOB?

89. HAVE WE FOOD ENOUGH FOR ALL?

90. THE AMERICAN WAY

93. FREEDOM OF THE AIR

94. RECONVERSION— THE JOB AHEAD

95. THE NEGRO IN AMERICA

96. HOUSES FOR TOMORROW

97. SOCIAL WORK AND THE JONESES

98. EPILEPSY— THE GHOST IS OUT OF TH

99. WHAT FOREIGN TRADE MEANS TO 1

100. SMALL FARM AND BIG FARM

101. THE STORY OF BLUE CROSS

102. VETERAN'S GUIDE

103. CARTELS OR FREE ENTERPRISE?

105. THERE CAN BE JOBS FOR ALL!

106. STRAIGHT TALK FOR DISABLED VETE

107. RACE RIOTS AREN'T NECESSARY

108. YOUTH AND YOUR COMMUNITY

109. GYPS AND SWINDLES

111. THE REFUGEES ARE NOW AMERICAN*

112. WE CAN HAVE BETTER SCHOOLS

113. BUILDING YOUR MARRIAGE*

114. WINGS OVER AMERICA *

115. WHAT SHALL WE DO ABOUT IMMIGfl

116. FOR A STRONGER CONGRESS

117. YOUR STAKE IN COLLECTIVE BARGAf

118. ALCOHOLISM IS A SICKNESS ||

119. SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT

SUPPORT SCIENCE?

120. TOWARD MENTAL HEALTH

121. RADIO IS YOURS

122. HOW CAN WE TEACH ABOUT SEX? 1

123. KEEP OUR PRESS FREE! ,

124. WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT BLINDll

125. WAR AND HUMAN NATURE

126. RHEUMATIC FEVER

127. KEEPING UP WITH TEEN-AGERS

128. OUR NEGRO VETERANS

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